Recently, the development of various materials has been pursued in various technical fields. Also, the development of raw materials used in the development of the various materials has been pursued. For example, in the case of a polymer material, the polymer itself having desired properties has been developed by a process for polymerization of known monomers, the combination, compositional ratio or distribution state of monomers in the polymer, the steric structure or side-chain length of the polymer, the type of side chain, etc. In addition, the development of novel monomers used in the preparation of polymers has also been made.
Meanwhile, as the depletion of existing energy sources such as petroleum or coal has recently been predicted, alternative energy sources capable of replacing these energy sources have been of increasing interest. A fuel cell, which is one of such alternative energy sources, is receiving particular attention because of its advantages in that it has high efficiency, does not emit pollutants such as NOx and SOx and uses abundant fuel.
The fuel cell is a power generation system that converts energy, produced by a chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidant into electrical energy. Typically, the fuel cell uses a hydrocarbon such as hydrogen, methanol or butane as a fuel and oxygen as an oxidant.
Fuel cells include a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), a phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC), an alkaline fuel cell (AFC), a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC), a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), and the like. Among them, the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has high energy density and high output, and thus has been most actively studied. This polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a difference from other fuel cells in that it does not use a liquid electrolyte but uses a solid polymer electrolyte membrane as an electrolyte.